You know what you want to spend on a bottle - so why shouldn't you be able to see ratings within price ranges? You can here. Wine focus is West Coast USA, Argentina, Chile, and soon Brazil. Also: interesting beers, spirits, musings, my booze and lifestyle magazine articles, dining and lodging recommendations in wine country, travel adventures, coffee, sushi, cigars, etc.

I try to taste at the same time of day, in the same glass, and without food to be as objective as possible.

Many wines I will vaccu-vin, refrigerate, and rate the next day to see how they hold up.

Finally, I taste and rate so many wines that a lot of the lesser wines fall to the back of my "to post" pile... accordingly, this site tends to focus on the best of the wines I rate each year (which, I assume is of higher importance to readers anyway).

30 SECONDS ON WHAT THIS SITE IS ABOUT…

1) I love wine and beer, 2) I have been blessed/cursed, with some sort of industrial-accident-breeds-turbo-sniffer nose, and 3) I have a bad memory for tasting notes.

Accordingly….

I take detailed notes so that when I’m shopping I can pull up my own site on a mobile phone to guide my purchases.

In short, these are notes I basically write for myself.

I also very much enjoy having people try wines I recommend, and the interactions I have with winemakers and other wine business folks.

I try to rate wines with a view to how we normal folks consume them. If you try some of these wines I’ve rated, see if my notes ring true for you. I truly hope they do.

Also, wines are rated within price category - because I, and I assume many people, go to a wine outlet with a per-bottle budget in mind.

As we all know, wines can change dramatically over time in your glass. I see that as an elemental part of wine rating, one often missed by the time demands placed on professional tasters. Therefore, I analyze over hours - not just the minutes many wine sages usual have.

When I don't finish a given bottle, I will take notes again the next day to gauge how well the wine survived overnight slumber in the fridge.

Cheers and happy yeast excretions!

HOW CAN THIS WEBSITE HELP YOU?

Well, the pricing of wine is sadly dominated by marketing and fads. In short, a wine's price is not a highly reliable indicator of its quality.

Accordingly, many fantastic bargains exist.

The goal of this site is to help bring those gems to your glass!

Another way in which this site is different is that we only rate wines against other wines in their same price category.

In other words, you can use this site to find affordable gems, but you also can pick a price point and then look for the highest ratings within that monetary range.

WHAT CAN YOU GET FROM THIS SITE?

Wine, as a liquid, is an incredibly complex symphony of chemistry.

Enjoying wine, however, does not need to be complicated at all.

Many wine drinkers are perplexed by fancy labels, crazy price ranges, and the pervasive legend that one needs to be an "expert" to really enjoy wine.

Hogwash.

You know EXACTLY how you like your: steak, cocktails, toast, vegetables, salad dressings, and fish to be served. Why?

Well, even though you don't know everything about how, where, why, and under what exact climatic conditions your meat, produce, and boozes are made - you know how you want them to smell and taste.

The same can, and should, be true for your wine preferences.

Yes, what I get out of drinking wine is enhanced by my familiarity with the stuff, but that does not mean I will enjoy a given glass any more than a non "expert" can.